By Michael Collins: Two-time former WBA super middleweight champion Anthony Mundine (43-4, 25 KO’s) is gunning for a fight against WBA junior middleweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., and is hoping he can get a fight against him as soon as possible. Mundine will be turning 37 on May 21st, and I wouldn’t give him much chance of ever getting his dream fight with Floyd at the rate he’s going.
Mundine recently picked up the interim WBA junior middleweight title last October with a 12 round decision win over Rigoberto Alvarez. However, Mundine promptly lost the title when he opted not to face Austin Trout. Instead of taking on Trout, Mundine plans on facing 41-year-old journeyman Bronco McKart on July 4th. Mundine is going to need to look spectacular in that fight for him to get back into the top 15 because he’s slipped out of the light middleweight ranking with his decision not to face Trout.
Mundine told http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au “”I’m going for Mayweather, man – that’s what I want. He’s the best – I want him… and I’m just going to keep beating whoever they put in front of me ’til I get him. I believe I’m on his level. He’s a great fighter – one of the best in our era – but I want the chance to see what I can do against him.”
That sounds like a hopeless pipedream for Mundine. You know he would have had a chance to fight some of the big names at 168, 160 and 154 in the last 10 years had he not spent so much time facing obscure opposition in his home country of Australia. Mundine kind of went into shutdown mode after losing to Mikkel Kessler in 2005. Since then, Mundine has fought mostly in Australia against pretty much beatable Australian based opposition. Recently, Mundine fought Alvarez, which was a break from the routine he’d been in. It’s good that Mundine was finally facing other guys, but that it took this long for him to do that.
I think Mundine shouldn’t waste his time hoping to fight Mayweather because it won’t happen. Mundine should focus on facing guys like Trout, Cornelius Bundrage and Zaurbeck Baysangurov. At least Mundine can realistically get fights against those guys. They may not give him the big paycheck that he’d get by facing Mayweather, but at least he’d be fighting for a world title.